Interim Ohio High School Athletic Association director Bob Goldring is moving forward with the plan of having fall sports, but he stressed that it is a ‘fluid situation’ during his first press conference in his new position Tuesday.
Goldring, who took over in an interim basis after former OHSAA executive director Jerry Snodgrass was recently let go, said many options would be reviewed when the board of directors meet later this week.
While he said the OHSAA will look to state government for direction, Goldring wants schools to have the power to decide if they want to play or not this fall.
“We really feel it’s the school’s decision on whether or not they have sports or not, just like every other extracurricular activity,” said Goldring’s teleconference. “We don’t think it’s the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s place to say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ to sports.
Our main focus, as you all know, is on our tournaments and we control those. We really have to seek directions from the governor’s office and his team and his medical staff if there’s going to be delays in the season, postponements in the season or items put in place where only non-contact sports are permitted during the fall. Then, we have to pivot and look at our different options for moving forward.”
One of the factors of not having some or all of fall sports is a financial one, both for the schools and the OHSAA itself.
The OHSAA suffered a big financial loss with the cancelation of several state tournaments last winter. That resulted in pay cuts for those at the OHSAA. For individual schools, losing sports like football and soccer would be a big blow to the athletic departments’ funding.
“Football is an income generator for us,” said Goldring on Tuesday. “Do we have to take measures to cut our playoffs down a few rounds? The fiscal part of things is very much on my radar right now.”’
There has been a lot of message board talk about the possibility of flipping some spring sports to the fall, and vice versa.
Goldring did not seem overly interested in that idea, but did say some sports like baseball and softball would be able to make a smooth transition into the fall.